Heart Filia
by LowBrau
Summary: END can fight the entire infamous Fairy Tail guild to complete exhaustion... but as good as they are at fighting, Fairy Tail is better at something else. Rating for violence.
1. I Call Your Name

"It's okay, Natsu." Runes flare to life at her hands. She can hear the others screaming behind her, but it's all dim, distant. END stands before her, growling at the low edge of human hearing, taut as a bowstring. The growling gets louder as Lucy's magic saturates the air around them, but he doesn't move. "It's okay. I won't let you hurt anyone else. And I won't let you go alone."

The spell finishes building, and Lucy takes just a second to hold it, to burn that last moment into her memory before she lets it loose. END staring at her, snarling, a nightmare of her Natsu; her friends screaming and sobbing at her back, her name fractured in a half- dozen agonized voices. The _heat_ emanating from him, thick with malice, making it hard to think, to breathe, to move.

And in that split second, it's Mama she thinks of, Mama and her theory that the One Magic is love.

 _Let it be._ she prays. She thinks of him, the one who brought her to Fairy Tail, brought her home. The boy who took her hand and offered her a fairy tale, a new adventure every day, Natsu with his beaming grin and bright eyes and steadfast heart. Everything that she knows of him, everything she feels for him, all the ways he's helped her grow- Lucy takes them and fills her heart and her magic with them, and her spell explodes into being.

END brought hellfire. Lucy Heartfilia brings hell itself.


	2. Come Together

"No, no, no…" Levi whispers, ignoring the blood dripping down her cheek.

Gajeel wraps a cloth around his hand and tries to wipe it away. He winds up smearing it across half her face instead but a scant corner of her mind still appreciates the thought.

"What? What did she just do?" Erza demands, still cradling an unconscious Happy. Wendy bends over the Exceed, hands alight with magic, brow furrowed in fierce concentration.

Erza's long red hair whips around at a choked sob from Mirajane. The blue, blue eyes of both Strauss sisters are fixed on the shadowy forms of Lucy and END, hazy but gradually solidifying. It's like watching the figures through a lacrima.

"She just- she just segued them into a different dimension." stutters Mirajane, sounding stunned. "Where on earth did Lucy learn such a thing?"

"Where'd she get the magic to do it? I coulda sworn she was drained." Gray demands. He swipes a hand through some of END's translucent flames, unsurprised at their lack of effect.

"She is." Loki grimly informs them. Juvia jumps a little at the Spirit's unexpected reappearance, immediately wincing and pressing a hand to her temple, but any explanation is forestalled by a hiss from Gajeel.

They're moving.

END lunges but Lucy, determined expression now clear, darts aside. END is inhumanly fast but Lucy's surprisingly agile; she manages to evade him twice more. Her lips move, but none of her friends quite manage to catch what she's saying so earnestly.

END does, though, and roars his defiance. His wings flare, the flames double-

 _Ah_ , Levi notes absently, _the more magic they use, the more clearly we can see them_ -

Lucy clenches her fists and meets his challenge, lifting her chin, squaring her shoulders, and looking him in the eye. She is near incandescent with the golden light of her own magic, and Levi darts a glance to Loki's face.

She's never seen any being look so proud… or so agonized.

"Life magic." Loki says quietly. "In extremis a mage's adrenaline triggers a corresponding spike in their magic-"

END strikes. Lucy meets him, golden light to black and blue flame, arms up as an inefficient shield. Even from here, Levi can see the blood and burns on her friend's skin… and the Fairy Tail guildmark on Lucy's right hand, golden and pulsating…

"-that's what everyone was using to fight before." Loki continues, gaze riveted to Lucy.

He doesn't have to remind them it wasn't enough. Even with Mavis helping them-

"Lucy's taking everything she has and converting it to magic." the Lion tells them. "It's been hundreds of years since this was done successfully. By the time she's finished, there won't even be a body left…"

His voice trails off into a whisper and suddenly Levi can picture it, just as Lu- chan told her, Loki phasing in and out of green- tinged intangibility in front of Karen Lilica's grave-

a sob from Mirajane, Lisanna's inscrutable face and heavy gaze, and Levi remembers the anima-

Runes are rising from the blood on Lucy's one arm, from the burns on the other. She's almost blinding now, awash in magic, arms and voice raised as she dances away from the demon's unfocused, enraged attacks.

Levi can't hear her Lu- chan, can't even read the seirei mage's lips, but she recognizes the fierce, feral grin, the implacable enraged love in those brown eyes.

"Lucy's singing." a dazed voice says, and Levi looks down to see gold reflected in Happy's distant gaze.

"I wish we could hear her." Wendy whispers.

Gajeel rests a heavy hand on the girl's shoulder. "Her song ain't for us. It's enough to be able to watch her this time."

 _That's right_ , Levi recalls, goosebumps rising on her arms as she watches Lucy's spell build. It's the most beautiful, overwhelming magery she's ever seen. _None of us were awake when she summoned the Celestial Spirit King_ …

Gajeel had been the first to recognize Lucy's sacrifice then. Instinctively, Levi threads her fingers through his, eyes still fixed to her friend. Gajeel stiffens briefly in surprise, then squeezes her hand _just_ hard enough.

His other hand is still on Wendy's shoulder. Their guildmates all draw closer simultaneously; Levi offers Mira her other hand and the older woman takes it gratefully. Mira wraps her free arm around Lisanna; Elfman drapes himself across his sisters' shoulders, nestling his head between theirs, crying without shame.

Evergreen tucks herself into Elfman's side; Bixlow presses against her on the other. Freed stands shoulder to shoulder with Bixlow and Laxus.

Levi sees Erza and Juvia propping up Gray. She sees Charle press her paw into Happy's, sees Cana snuggle determinedly into Erza and Juvia's backs, chin on Erza's shoulder and brushing against Gray's hair. She feels Warren in their heads, relaying everything back to the rest of the Guild; feels Lily's small form wrap one arm around her leg and one arm around Gajeel's as they all press together.

"Lucy." she hears Erza murmur, and though Levi thought the requip mage had burned through all of her magic earlier Levi feels the stir, feels the familiar twist in space as Erza reaches out.

Gray is quick to join her, just as exhausted, but as Juvia follows suit Levi suddenly _gets it_. Everything she feels at that moment-

 _all the love, all the pride, the deep down unacknowledged anger at Lucy's reckless disregard for her own life_

\- combines seamlessly with everything that to Levi means **Lucy-**

 _blonde hair and brown eyes and a pink stamped hand eagerly offered_

 _books and squeals and in depth discussions about magical theory and history_

 _sinking into the baths with a content sigh_

 _sitting by a hospital bed waiting patiently_

 _all those_ I know about your dragonslayer _sly glances but not a word spoken_

 _love, love, love, above all, a love that Levi thinks must be what it's like to have a sister-_

 _ **Lucy**_.

She feels Gajeel join her, feels Lily and Charle and Cana and all the rest…

There's an additional shimmer of magic in the air, and out of the corner of her eye Levi sees other Spirits materializing around Loki-

 _Wounded as they are, they still come, one by one. Here is Virgo, her shoulders set and face blank; here is Aries, crying into Leo's sleeve. Here is Capricorn, helping sobbing, bloodied Taurus to stand. Here is Gemini, perched on two of Cancer's crab legs. Here is Sagittarius, tears streaming down his face as he salutes._

 _And here, here is Scorpio, grim- faced, holding a blue pitcher at such an angle as to give its water a view of the fight…_

And across from them, the chime of three more Gates opening…

 _Libra stands and watches, a sentinel among them. Ophiuchus isn't much more animated, but the Pisces pair link arms, the mother leaning into her son._

Lucy's spell erupts into a cacophony of light. Levi closes her eyes, but is still blinded by the flash; she hears cursing all around her. Apparently not everyone covered their eyes in time…

But then she smells an odd, burnt metallic odor, and oh God, burned flesh-

Her eyes snap open. It takes a moment for the dazzle from all the light to clear, but Levi's still quick enough to see Leo catching a smiling Lucy as she falls, bloody and burned; Natsu collapsing to his knees, eyes wide and mouth open in a soundless scream; Gates flaring as most of the Zodiac return to their world (though, from Taurus' indignant moos and cursing, not all of them go of their own volition); the barest suggestion of a wispy mist in the air in the shape of a mermaid, reaching out a hand to Lucy even as Scorpio and the pitcher he's clutching disappear.

Levi sees the wrench on Loki's face as he forces his own magic into submission, the way his fingers tighten on Lucy's top (or what's left of it) when he focuses. Levi sees Wendy skid to a stop beside the Lion, face fearful but determined, already pushing her own exhaustion aside.

Levi sees Erza and Gray flank Natsu ( _but when did they move?_ she wonders), sees Erza speaking intently into Natsu's ear, sees Gray deliberately station himself inside Natsu's personal space. Distantly, Levi hears Warren assuring them through the link that help is on the way, they've already sent Reedus, Nab, and the Conbolts with wagons, just hang on, just hold on-

The Strauss sisters push past Levi, wearing identical set expressions and resolute eyes. Mira's already ripping one of her own petticoats into strips when she kneels; Lisanna waves Levi and Juvia over.

"We need water and alcohol," she says succinctly, and Levi shakes herself. Juvia's arms are already water, and even if she can't focus properly and there's still blood on her head, Juvia's magic never wavers.

 _Oh, Lu- chan_ , Levi says silently, and she's never been so proud of and awed by anyone in her life… or so sad. _Lu- chan, you're amazing_.

Lucy's still smiling.


	3. Over Me

Chelia doesn't bother with the door.

Wendy left the window open, perhaps for just this reason, and the sharp- eared among them can hear people in the street below exclaiming and drawing each others' attention to the girls descending from the sky; the one with wings like an angel, the one with the bright pink hair, and _say, isn't that one of Blue Pegasus' Sky Sisters?_

Chelia nonchalantly steps over the windowsill, the ball of her foot landing lightly on the floor. Charle follows, shrinking into the her cat form as she allows her magic to fade out, and she takes Happy's paw when he rushes forward to help her down.

Chelia doesn't say a word, just nods at the subdued greetings from Gray as she walks over to Wendy. Wendy doesn't look away from Lucy's burned arm, but she does lean into Chelia when the other girl presses her shoulder into Wendy's and weaves her own magic into the healing matrix Wendy's working on.

It's three days before Lucy's stabilized. It's three days of the little girls working themselves to exhaustion, healing in twelve or, on one particularly bad day, fifteen hour shifts, splitting their time between Lucy and the rest of the guild. It's three days in which Fairy Tail is unusually subdued; there is no property damage, there are no fights. It's three days of Natsu refusing to leave Lucy's room; three days in which Natsu sits there, watching the healers work, eyes somehow simultaneously glazed and screaming. It's three days of Erza and Gray standing watch beside him; three days of Juvia taking care of them; three days of Mirajane, Lisanna, and Happy trying every trick they know to get Natsu to eat, to sleep, to speak.

It's three days before Lucy ever opens her eyes.

But when she does, her gaze immediately seeks Natsu, landing on him with uncanny accuracy and awareness; her fingers twitch in his direction, her lips shape his name.

Wendy and Chelia's mouths snap closed on their questions, urgent as they are. The room is silent.

Holding her gaze, Natsu crawls across the floor. At Lucy's bedside, he hesitantly reaches out; Lucy huffs, strains, and manages to take his hand in hers.

Natsu buries his face in the blankets and Lucy's hip and shudders with the force of his sobs.

It's three days after the fight ends that Fairy Tail wins.


End file.
